


See Your Colors

by MaddeningNoise



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Colors, Falling In Love, LonelyEyes, Multi, Short Chapters, Soulmate AU, chapters may be edited later, dasiria, jonmartin, soulmate, whatthegirlfriends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 16,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddeningNoise/pseuds/MaddeningNoise
Summary: Martin goes color for Jon.Much later, Jon goes color for Martin.Featuring short codas about other couples.(Updates Wednesdays)
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Peter Lukas/Jonah Magnus
Comments: 111
Kudos: 656





	1. Chestnut Brown

Martin goes color shortly before the four of them are transferred to the archives. 

Over his time on the research team, he’s taken to bringing everyone tea sometime in the mid morning. It’s a helpful, nurturing sort of routine that Martin finds comfort in, and no one else seems to mind in the slightest. By this time, he knows exactly how everyone on the team takes their tea: Chamomile for Sasha and Beth, Green tea with lemon for Tim and without for Al, mint tea for Leah, and Earl Grey with just a dash of sugar for Jon. 

He’s doing the last of the rounds before returning to his desk with his own cup of steaming green tea. As he drops by Jon’s desk, the man looks up briefly, murmurs a thankyou and reaches to accept his cup. Their fingers brush for a quick moment, and in that moment, something in Martin’s vision shifts, and suddenly Jon’s tea is a very different shade than the greyscale Martin’s viewed the world in all his life. It’s a warm, middling sort of shade that catches Martin’s eye, and he can’t help but stare.

Jon clears his throat, and Martin snaps back into reality. Jon is giving him an odd, inquisitive look with eyes that are the same color as the tea Martin has just passed off to him. Martin clears his own throat and hurriedly returns to his desk, where he pulls out his phone and hesitates a mere moment before typing “color of earl grey tea” into his search engine 

The color Martin’s seeing in Jon’s tea, as it turns out, is Cinnamon Brown. The online color encyclopedia Martin finds describes it as a warm, reddish hue. 

Martin sets his phone face down on his desk, then picks it up again moments later to look at the color again. It’s still there, vivid against the rest of the grayscale screen. He risks a look at Jon, who is hunched over his desk, tapping something rapidly on his keyboard. Then, he returns his gaze to his phone and makes another search query.

Jon’s eyes are chestnut brown.


	2. Grey

Jon’s new office in the archives is cramped, but it’s his own, and it means he’s no longer on the open floor office in research.

His new desk is a deep, charcoal grey, the wood smooth to the touch, and though it’s empty for the moment, he knows it won’t take long for it to be scattered with file folders in various shades of grey and white. He collapses into the black desk chair and starts investigating his desk drawers. 

“Hello, Jon.”

Jon jumps and returns his attention to the door. Rosie is standing there, carrying a box and smiling wistfully.

“Oh! You can set that down there.” He gestures to one side of the desk. “Thank you, Rosie.” 

“This is a beautiful desk.” She comments as she does so. “Quite the upgrade from your research desk, I’m sure.” 

Jon huffs a little laugh at that. “Considering my last one was metal and plastic and a little too low to work at comfortably, yes. I’d say it’s one perk I’ll get used to.”

“Umber Brown.” She murmurs. 

Jon’s quite sure that comment wasn’t meant for him, and that social norms dictate he ought to ignore it. 

He doesn’t. “Ah. I did hear from Sasha that you had-“

Rosie’s cheeks change shades of grey. “Yes, sorry. That wasn’t appropriate-“

“It’s alright. Really.”

“It’s just it’s all so new and I’m still so amazed by just how much color there is...that wasn’t right either I’m sorry, I know you can’t-“ Rosie stumbles through the words. 

“Rosie.” Jon says levely. “It’s fine, truly.” 

Rosie nods and ducks out, muttering something about work at her desk. 

Jon sighs and digs through the grey box on his desk. Under the files and papers Rosie had brought him lies a single slate grey tape recorder.

Jon furrows his brow, tucks the tape recorder into the lowermost desk drawer, and turns to the files.


	3. Hazel

Martin wasn’t sure whether he should accept the transfer to the archives when Elias had offered it. 

After all, he had gone color for Jon just over a week ago, and what were the ethics of that anyways? Jon didn’t know, and Martin probably should have told HR when it happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to record it anywhere other than the little leather bound notebook he kept for poetry. 

It wasn’t as if Martin had gone full color for Jon, he reasoned. So far all he was seeing was brown and a little bit of red, both of which he had gone on about in length in his poetry book. 

So he had taken the position when Elias had offered it, and now he was sitting at his new desk in the archives. Sasha’s desk was directly in front of his, facing away from him, and as such he had a direct view of her dark (coffee brown) curls as a constant reminder of how utterly screwed he was.

Especially since Jon, his soulmate, seemed to actively hate him. 

He had not taken kindly to seeing Martin at his archives desk on their first full day. Apparently Tim and Sasha had been handpicked by Jon, and Martin had been tacked on to the list at Elias’s discretion. So that was just wonderful. 

Jon was still resolutely ignoring him when he wasn’t giving him the toughest or nastiest follow up tasks. Martin has worked diligently on each and every one of them, thoroughly following up on whatever leads had been passed his way despite any inconveniences or dangers.

Hopefully it will be enough to make a difference in Jon’s opinion of him. 

“Hey Martin” 

Tim’s voice breaks through the haze of Martin’s thoughts. He startles, ripping his eyes away Jon’s office door and nearly falling off his chair. 

“You alright, mate?” Tim raises his eyebrows at him, and Martin blushes deeply at the way his eyes dart suspiciously to the office door. 

(Tim’s eyes are true grey, as it turns out. Martin’s starting to be able to tell the difference.) 

“Fine. Martin says hurriedly. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, can I borrow your phone for a moment?” Tim asks, “mine's dead.”

Martin passes it over and Tim retreats to his desk to make the call. Sasha’s eyes are on Tim as he crosses the room, occasionally swiping the screen. Martin feels a tickle of concern in the back of his mind and rises to retrieve his phone from Tim.

Tim’s eyes go wide as Martin approaches. “I knew it! You have Touch Colours !” He declares, swiping open the Color Index app. “Who is it then, Martin?”

“That's none of your business, Tim.” Martin says furiously, reaching to snach the phone back from Tim.

Sasha’s head perks up at the desk next to his, taking a sudden interest in Martin’s personal business. She joins them and perches on the edge of the desk.

“Congrats, Martin!” She says cheerfully, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“You wouldn’t know him.” Martin insists.

But his eyes give him away as they trail back to Jon’s office door. Tim and Sasha follow his gaze and turn to look at him with wide eyes. 

“Really?” Tim says, his voice halfway between shocked disbelief and gleeful mischief. 

“Him?” Sasha’s face reflects much the same. 

Martin buries his face in his hands. “Please don’t tell him. It only happened a few weeks ago.”

Sasha pats him patronizingly on the head. 

“Don’t worry.” Tim flashes him a wink. “Your secret is safe with us Martin. He will get suspicious if you keep neglecting your work in favor of daydreaming about his hazel eyes though.”

“They’re brown.” Martin mutters pettily. “Chestnut brown”

Sasha snorts and Tim bursts into giggles. 

Martin buries his face in his hands again.


	4. Pink and Red

Martin cowers in his flat as Jane Prentiss and her worms lay siege to his door and windows. He’s fairly sure that he’s blocked every point of entry, but he’s careful to double check every few minutes in case the worms get through anyways. 

He wonders vaguely while he does one of his careful rounds of the flat whether anyone will notice that he’s gone. It’s been a few days now, and he was sure people would question his absence at work, but no one has made any effort to contact him as far as he knows. After all, it’s possible that they have tried, and he doesn’t know, since his phone is gone and his laptop has been cut off. 

In his weeks working in the Archive, Martin’s colors have slowly trickled in. More reds have been introduced to his vision, and oranges and yellows followed soon after. He’s just missing cool shades now. 

Which reminds him of another fear that had occurred to him during his time trapped in his flat. If he dies alone here, Jon will never see color. Martin wants to sit next to him on a park bench someday and point out the shades of the world, wants to compare shades of blue on their color indexes to they sky above and the grass under their feet. More than anything, he wants to tell Jon the truth, regardless of the consequences, but if he dies here, he’ll never even get the chance to let Jon know. 

If he dies here, Jon will never see color, and never know why, and that is worse to Martin than Prentiss’ near constant banging on his door, a persistent reminder of the danger that he’s in. 

So he takes every precaution he can to prevent his own death, stuffs the spaces in his windows with towels and barricades the door and waits there for thirteen days, eating canned peaches and microwave meals, and reminds himself of the names of the colors he sees around his house. 

His wood floor is almond brown, one of the pillows on his couch is scarlet, the lamp shade is melon orange, the canned peaches he’s been eating for days float in dark orange juice that Martin can’t recall the official name for. His sweater is dark grey. The squashed worms on the bottom of his shoe are an ugly mix of pinks and reds. 

And Jon’s eyes are chestnut brown.


	5. Pale Grey

Martin Blackwood bursts into his office, looking like an utter wreck. 

He’s panting hard, clearly having run the majority of the way here. His hair is a mess of tangles, and Jon’s not certain, but it looks like his sweater might be on backward. 

“Martin!” He exclaims as the door slams open. 

Normally, he’d be annoyed with him for such an intrusion while he was recording a statement, but there’s a wild panic in Martin’s eyes that tells him that finishing that particular statement isn’t a priority right now. 

He sits Martin down as his assistant demands to make a statement, to get it all out, to have a record of it. Jon obliges him and takes his statement.

It’s a meandering thing, full of tangents and thorough explanations and pleas that Jon take him seriously, that he believes Martin’s story.

Jon does. Of course he does. 

“There’s a room I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now.” Jon offers as soon as he has verified Martin’s sincerity a third time. 

Something passes over Martin’s face that Jon can’t quite name. Martin fidgets with his sweater uncertainly.

“Okay, thanks. To be honest, I didn’t, didn’t expect you to take it seriously.”

When Martin leaves for a nap on the cot, something flickers at the edge of Jon’s vision. For just a moment, the file hanging off the corner of his desk looks...not grey. Jon fumbles for his phone to look up what he’s seeing, but when he looks back to the file, it’s back to being a pale grey. 

Jon shakes his head hard and decides that it must have been a trick of the light and his sleep deficit. 

He doesn’t think about the color of the file for the rest of the day, and by the next, he’s forgotten completely.


	6. Coda: Salmon and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira and Daisy / Blue and Salmon.

Basira meets Daisy on the force. She’s not particularly forthcoming about what she’s seen that had landed her in Section 31, but then, neither is Basira herself. They bond over late nights poring over case files, with bad office coffee clutched in their hands, and they don’t discuss what horrible things they’ve seen. 

Daisy had caught Basira’s eye from the moment they first shared a room during a briefing. Daisy had entered late, quietly stalking in and taking a place in the back of the room, standing against the wall. She’s tall and lean, her hair pulled back hastily into a high ponytail that reaches to between her shoulder blades. She catches Basira staring, and her eyes narrow, and Basira looks away. 

She can feel Daisy’s eyes on her for the rest of the briefing, and it takes a monumental effort not to stare back, but Basira manages it somehow, up until the last moments of the meeting, when her eyes meet Daisy’s just as she turns to leave, and there’s a flash of something in them that catches her off guard. Daisy looks panicked, and Basira makes her excuses to avoid chatting with the other officers and pursues her out, catching her by the arm as she makes her way down the stairs. 

Basira is shorter than Daisy on even ground, but right now she’s a stair above her, and she can meet Daisy’s eyes more easily this way. Daisy turns with a glare, and Basira finds herself startled by the intensity of her gaze. 

“Your eyes…” she murmurs, suddenly feeling very self conscious for grabbing an officer she barely knows by the arm. 

“Blue, I’ve been told.” Daisy says shortly. “If you’re looking for the name.”

“Blue.” Basira repeats, tasting the word and drinking in the color. 

“Your headscarf?” Daisy asks.

“Salmon, I think.” Basira responds, still caught in the knowledge of her first color. “That’s what the label said, anyway.”

“Hmm.” Daisy responds. 

They stand there for a moment on the stairs, caught in the knowledge of each other, before Daisy pulls away.

“I’ve got to go.” She says, “I’ll see you around.” 

And before Basira can say a word, she’s slipped out the door. 

They don’t talk about their colors more than that, don’t revel in the arrival of each new shade the way other soulmates do, noses buried in a shared color indexes. The salmon headscarf becomes a favorite of Basira’s, and she cherishes every flash of blue that she sees in Daisy’s eyes across the briefing room, or later, the golden blond of her ponytail as it swishes behind her head. They don’t share words much at all, just glances, the occasional compliments that Daisy likes Basira’s headscarf, whichever shade it may be today, a passive acknowledgement that the colors have continued to come on both sides. 

But something has changed in the small smiles that Daisy gives her. She sits with her in briefing moments sometimes, and once, on an investigation that they’ve been warned will be dangerous, they find their pinkies linked in the van on the way there. 

It’s something. But Basira would like it to be more.


	7. Red

Jon taps his fingers on his desk after Martin hastily retreats. That meeting had certainly been enlightening, if nothing else. He feels he can trust what Martin has told him, even if it was conveyed under evident distress. Jon feels a little bad about that, actually. 

Still, he’s relieved to know what Martin has been lying about it. It certainly explains a lot, like the badly done citations and his poor understanding of basic research methods. If this is all there is that Martin has been keeping secret, Jon thinks he might just be on his way to being able to trust him. He can safely rule Martin off of his list of suspects for now, at least. Unless new evidence against him comes up. 

Jon sighs heavily and ruffles his hair in irritation. Even with Martin tentatively ruled out, he still has no idea who might have killed Gertrude, and more importantly, who might have it out for him. 

It’s at that moment that a noise catches his attention. He looks up, to find that the tape recorder on his is still recording. But something doesn’t look right. 

The record button isn’t it’s usual dark gray. 

Jon blinks. It stays not grey. He blinks again, and gets up slowly from his desk, making his way to the old color index that he keeps on his bookshelf, keeping his eyes on the record button. He gropes at the bookshelf and finally takes his eyes off of it.

He finally gets the color index off his shelf and begins to flip through it, looking for the matching color. He turns his eyes back to his desk, to find the record button has gotten back to dark grey. There’s not matching color in the book either, just pages of the entire spectrum of grey. 

Jon shakes his head and returns to his desk. It must have been a trick of the light, not color. There’s really no reason to suspect otherwise, regardless of his initial suspicions. 

Besides, Jon had decided a long time ago that a soulmate isn’t something in the cards for him. It wouldn’t make sense, with the way he is. No, it’s overall better to let go of that particular expectation.

Nevertheless, Jon’s eyes travel back to the record button occasionally. 

It stays grey.


	8. Forest Green

The archives are an odd sort of quiet the night before Jon, Daisy, Basira, and Tim leave to stop the Unknowing. It’s the hush of a plan in motion, of the knowledge of impending danger. Jon wanders the darkened halls of the Institute long after close, with no plans to return home that night. Daisy and Basira have cuddled up together on the break room couch, clutching each other as though it could prevent harm from coming to the other. Melanie and Tim have disappeared to who knows where.

Jon’s not sure what to do with himself. 

He finds Martin in the spare storage room, curled up on the cot, facing away from the door. He startles when the door clicks closed behind Jon and whips around, eyes wild with anxiety. He relaxes instantly when his eyes land on Jon. 

“Oh.” Martin sits up on the cot, “Jon, you startled me.”

“So I noticed,” Jon said drily. 

A smile pulls at the corner of Martin’s mouth. Jon feels the shadow of one on his own face. 

A long moment passes, before Jon finally asks, “How are you, Martin?”

Martin looks surprised but mildly pleased by the question. “I’m doing...alright.”

Jon isn’t buying it. He raises his eyebrows at the other man, who looks up at him from the cot with a vulnerable, open expression. 

Martin chuckles in a dry, anxious sort of noise that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Okay. fine.” He huffs. “I’m terrified. You could die, Jon. Any of the others could die. Hell, I’m doing the safest thing of any of us and I could die too.” 

Jon moves before he can doubt himself, sitting down next to Martin on the cot, close enough that if one of them moved over just a little, they’d be touching. He tries not to think about that too hard.

“Me too.” He says after a long moment.” I’m terrified too, Martin.” 

Martin looks at him, and Jon finds himself looking back as Martin’s hand moves to cover the back of his. He carefully flips his hand in Martin’s so that their palms are touching. 

Martin’s eyes aren’t dark gray. 

Jon disobeys every instinct in his body at the sight of it, which tells him to lean in, to rest his head on Martin’s shoulder or press his lips to Martin’s, and startles back. 

Martin’s eyes, which are not gray, look back at him. Their hands are still linked, and Martin’s grip is comfortably firm in his. 

“Jon.” Martin says. “Look, we could die tomorrow, and you should know that…”

Jon doesn’t give him the time to finish, but it doesn’t take any input from the Beholding to know what Martin is going to say. He releases Martin’s hand and flees the room, not stopping until he reaches his office and locks the door behind him, heart pounding. 

In a few strides, he crosses to the bookshelf and removes the color index that sits there, flipping the page open until he sees the color he’s looking for.

Martin’s eyes are forest green.


	9. Dark Gray

Jonathan Sims is pacing the floor in the darkness of their shared hotel room, each footfall met with an obtrusive creak of the wooden floors below.

Tim wouldn’t care, would outright ignore it under most circumstances, but they have to stop the Unknowing tomorrow, and neither Tim, nor Jon have had a wink of sleep. Although technically, they have to stop the Unknowing today, seeing as it’s past 3:00 am. Tim sighs heavily and sits up in bed, glaring at Jon.

“Boss.” Tim says. “I swear if you don’t sit down and go the fuck to sleep, or at least be quiet, I’ll knock you out myself.”

Jon looks at him. There’s a wild, anxious sort of look in his dark gray eyes. At this point, that sort of look on Jon’s face is to be expected, really.

“I’ve gone color for Martin” Jon blurts.

Of all the things Tim might have thought Jon would say, that wasn’t one of them.

“He’ll be pleased to hear that.” Tim says levelly. “Seeing as he’s been pining over you since before we got transferred to the archives.”

Surprise crosses Jon’s face, and now Tim really wants to hit him.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Tim asks. “You really didn’t know. That’s- you wouldn’t. You’ve been too busy dealing with all of this to even think about anyone else for even a second.”

“I never expected this-“ Jon says, sitting heavily on his bed.

“I mean yeah. Shows in how rude you’ve been to him for the past few years.”

Jon buries his face in his hands. “I have, haven’t I?”

Tim nods, finding an odd sort of satisfaction in Jon’s dilemma. “You’ve been a complete dick.”

Jon groans and cards a hand through his hair. The room is silent for a moment.

“Before, When I said that I had never expected this,” Jon says. “You’re absolutely right that I’ve never treated Martin the way I ought to have done. But what I meant was that I never expected to have a soulmate at all. This was never in the plans.”

Tim hums noncommittally. If he’s going to die tomorrow, he has no plans to spend his last night on earth having a heart to heart with Jonathan Sims, of all people.

Jon fails to take the hint. “I’ve been so awful to him. What am I supposed to do, Tim?”

Tim meets Jon’s eyes despite himself. “You tell Martin the moment you get back.” He says, “you tell him the truth and you make it right.”

Jon sighs and scuffs his foot against the floor. Tim takes Jon’s silence as an opportunity to roll over so that he’s facing away from his boss and cuts off any further conversation.

Neither Tim nor Jon get much sleep that night.


	10. Red, Orange, and Blue

“I hear somewhat belated congratulations are in order.” Elias says, his voice dripping with falsified cheer. “It’s a shame the man you’ve gone Color for really treats you very poorly.”

Martin scowls back and hates the tremor in his voice as he tries to deliver his own biting reply. “Oh is that supposed to be, what, A revelation?”

The statements continue to burn in the bin on the desk, the flames bright orange and red, with tinges of blue in the curling center of the old documents. Martin focuses on the color in the room, the incongruent icy blue of Elias’s eyes and the mahogany brown of the desk in front of him. The pages in the bin have shriveled to almost nothing, and the flames are disappearing at the edges. Martin contemplates setting another few pages alight in front of Elias, just for the colors that would burst to life in the bin. 

“You know I really should’ve gone for that.” Elias muses. “Found something that would’ve managed to finally shatter that precious image you have of him. But as you say, I am very busy at the moment. So I suppose I’ll have to go with what I had prepared.”

“Do it.” Martin spits, more bravery in his voice than he really feels. 

“Your mother.” Elias begins. “She’s always been difficult, hasn’t she?”

Martin feels his blood run cold as Elias continues monologuing at him about his mother’s hatred for him. He can feel hot tears running down his face. He’d always wondered, maybe some part of his mind had even known…

When it’s all over, Elias leaves. Martin sniffles and dries his eyes on his sleeve, an effort made useless by the fact that the wetness on his face is immediately renewed by fresh tears. The world blurs in front of him, a mess of color and shapes.

Melanie appears at the door. 

“Did you find anything?” Martin asks, internally praying that this wasn’t all for nothing. 

Melanie responds in the affirmative. 

Martin sighs in relief and they leave the institute.

Later that day, in his apartment, Martin keeps his mind off Elias’ words by cataloging colors in his mind, reciting where he first saw them. 

It keeps the pain at bay.


	11. Red, Orange, and Blue (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra short chapter this week. Unfortunately, I am now entirely out of chronological chapters that are already done. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

The Unknowing is a blur of color and light and confusion, and Jon can’t remember who he is, or why he’s here, or even where here is. Something in the coherent part of his brain tells him that these colors have names, but he can’t think for the life of him what they are. For that matter, he realizes he doesn’t even know his own name, or the names of those surrounding him. Nothing seems quite right, up until the moment when Jon snaps out of it, Tim ends up with the detonator, and with a final snarky joke, sends the world up in flames.

For a split second, the world goes into sharp relief in bright reds, fiery oranges and, at the center of it all, neon blues, racing toward him, sending him flying backward among the brightly colored chaos of the Stranger’s Ritual attempt. 

There are so many new colors around Jon. Something in the back of his mind notes that he’s been able to see them for less than forty eight hours. 

The burst of warm shades from the explosion are followed by a color Jon knows well. He loses consciousness, and the world goes black.


	12. Coda: Muddied

Basira’s colors have been clean and crisp since the day she looked across the briefing room to see her soulmate’s eyes in vivid blue. This has not been the case since Daisy disappeared during the Unknowing. 

“I’m telling you,” she insists to an officer at her old precinct. “Daisy’s alive!”

The officer across the counter, Davids, raises his eyebrows at her. “No one survived the explosion. You were already out. We’ve got one in a coma, one dead with not much left of him, and one missing. What do you suggest happened to her?”

Basira falters. “I don’t know,” she admits, “but it wasn’t something normal. If you’d just let me talk to a Sectioned officer, maybe McCollough?”

Davids ignores the mention of Section 31 all together. “What even makes you think she’s alive? What possible evidence-”

“I’m her soulmate.” Basira says. “I’m her soulmate and I can still see the colors.”

She does not admit to the fact that while she can still see the hues Daisy had brought to her all those years ago, they’re muddied now, shadows of what they had once been. She has her suspicions as to the cause, but she’s exhausted the Magnus Institute’s supply of literature on Soulbonds and the effects that certain supernatural forces may have on them to little avail. She’s followed every lead, exhausted every contact, and still the colors remain tainted, with Daisy nowhere in sight. 

A crease appears between Davids’ eyebrows. “That’s odd.” He says, sounding intrigued for the first time in their conversation. “But I’m afraid I can’t do much more for you than write up a missing persons report. 

Basira groans, but fills in the gaps for the report and leaves with yet another dead end hit head on. Her watch informs her that it’s only four in the afternoon. The sky above as a nasty shade of muddied blue as Basira rubs at the fraying edges of her salmon hijab, which now appears a nasty shade of grey orange to her eyes. 

Something is wrong. Something bad has happened to Daisy, maybe even still is happening at this very moment, and Basira can’t find her, or help her, and she is reminded of it constantly. In every waking moment, the world is visibly wrong. In every formerly pretty color, Basira sees discomfort and fear and pain, and wants nothing more than to make it all go away, and to bring Daisy back and hold her close. 

Maybe that’s why, when her phone goes off and the caller ID informs her that the call is coming from the correctional facility where one very dangerous individual in particular is being held, she answers it without a moment’s hesitation. 

“Detective.” Elias’s smooth voice greets her from the other side. 

Basira can feel her blood curdle at the sound, but her vision is tainted and all she can think of is Daisy. 

“I have some information about the whereabouts of your soulmate.” Elias drawls. “I’d be happy to share, if you’d be willing to meet.”

And maybe that’s why Basira agrees.


	13. Stormy Grey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay look, I spent all of today thinking i had a chapter ready, only to discover I did not this evening. I went into a trance and when I came to, this was here. I've had problems actually writing this chapter for some reason, but there's nothing like a self imposed deadline and the right mood to get you to write a chapter.

Martin stares at Jon where he lies on the hospital bed.

The hospital staff are perplexed. They say he’s all but dead. The only signs of life coming from the body in front of him are brain activity and the twitching of his closed eyes. The rest is far too still, his hands cold to the touch, pulse absent from his wrist.

That, and the fact that Martin can still see in color.

The Doctors had been relieved when Martin offered up the information that he was Jon’s soulmate, and that yes, he was still seeing in color. It was another sign of life accounted for, proof that the medical anomaly taking up a bed in their hospital was still alive.

All Martin felt was despair. He’d told the hospital staff keeping Jon alive that Jon was his soulmate, but not Jon himself. He’d give anything to have Jon back and tell him the truth. Then again, Jon had run away the last time they’d been in a room together when Martin had intended to tell him the truth.

Martin spent long hours with a cup of tea clutched in his hands by Jon’s bedside. Sometimes he talks to Jon, or reads him stories, sometimes even reads a statement. But the statements are exhausting to Martin, and they don’t seem to do much good for Jon. After a long day of sitting by Jon’s bedside, reading statement after terrible statement, praying that Jon will wake up (maybe the next one, maybe the next one, maybe the next one), Martin collapses in tears, clutching Jon’s hand as the world blurs around him.

“Wake up, Jon.” He pleads, wanting more than anything to see a glimpse of Jon’s chestnut brown eyes, or to hear a chuckle as Jon lifts a weak hand to brush a lock of hair away from Martin’s tear stained face.

Months pass.

Jon doesn’t wake up.

He hadn’t lied when he’d told the doctors that the colors were still there, but they’d changed, somehow. Everything was duller, less saturated. The colors were still there, but it was like Martin was viewing them through a foggy haze, even before he went back to work at the institute and started working for Peter.

He goes to the hospital less and less over the coming months. Peter insists that he stop, but Martin can’t bear to let Jon go. It feels like he’s dead, if he dismisses Jon’s fragile comatose state entirely and stops his bedside vigils, and he can’t do that.

Peter joins him at Jon’s bedside one day, five months after Jon entered the coma, and stands silently at the back of the room until Martin turns to acknowledge him.

The tears have stopped flowing, after months of crying in this exact spot. Martin feels ragged from it. He doesn’t want Peter here. He wants Jon back.

“It is a terribly lonely feeling, isn’t it?” Peter says quietly. His eyes are dark grey, like a storm at sea.

Martin nods. “It is, but so is staying away from him.”

Peter hums, eyes fixed to the spot where Martin’s fingers are intertwined tight with Jon’s limp hand.

“So painful.” He comments. “Wouldn’t it be easier to let him go?”

A sob rises in Martin’s throat. He pushes it forcefully down.

“I don’t know how.”

Peter smiles, lips closed and concealed by his heavy beard. “I can show you.”

The hospital room is rapidly filling with gray fog, but the passing nurses don’t seem to notice. Martin looks back at Jon’s sleeping form, at his warm brown skin and dark hair streaked with white and grey.

“You just have to step away.” Peter’s voice is smooth, tantalizing. "Embrace the Lonely, Martin." The fog licks at Martin’s knees, but doesn’t envelop him.

He squeezes Jon’s hand once more,

And finally, he lets go.


	14. Gray

A few weeks prior, he would have felt ridiculous, or even scared, calling out to an empty room in an attempt to call for some unseen, dangerous individual who would be able to disappear Martin to where no one could reach him. Now, he just feels exasperated and slightly anxious. 

To be fair, the anxiety has nothing to do with calling out for Peter Lukas. It has more to do with the fact that for the first time in ages, his surroundings have gone completely gray. 

His first fear had been that Jon was finally dying, that he was passing away without Martin there to hold his hand and stroke his hair and whisper words of comfort, whether his soulmate could hear them or not. A quick call to the hospital had calmed those fears. 

It appears that Peter is in a rare sociable mood today, though. Martin feels his ears pop as a high whistling fills the room and a low mist floods the floor. 

“Did you want something, Martin?” Peter’s voice is pleasant as ever, though his presence causes the hairs on the back of Martin’s neck to stand on end. 

‘I can’t see them anymore.” Martin says, feeling his voice break slightly. “They’re gone…”

A slow smile stretches across Peter’s face. “That’s a wonderful sign, Martin. You’re developing faster than I thought you would.”

Martin Blackwood is not generally a man inclined to violence, but in that moment he considers walking across the room to punch Peter Lukas right in his smug face.

He restrains himself. “I thought he was dying, at first.”

Peter nods. “The loss of color is pretty typical for avatars and victims of the Lonely. No one in my family can see it, though to be fair that’s mostly because we generally marry outside of our soulbonds. Keeps us more lonely, you see, and keeps someone outside the family lonely as well. You’d be surprised how many people rely on their soulbond for social fulfillment.”

Martins frowns at him. “Will they come back?” 

Peter shrugs. “If you leave the path you’re on right now, yes. Do you want to stop, Martin?” 

“No” the lie slips out of his mouth easily. 

(It hadn’t been a lie, at first. Joining up with Peter had seemed like a good way to get killed, and Martin had been okay with that. Martin’s motivations had changed.)

Peter offers him another smug smile. “Wonderful. If it makes you feel any better, I can see them sometimes, if I try. You probably can too. Elias tells me they’re much more vivid and numerous when not overshadowed by the haze of the Lonely, but I like them better this way, I think.”

And he disappears, leaving Martin gaping at the spot where he had been standing. 

“No way.” he says out loud to the empty room. “He was messing with me. There’s absolutely no way that he and Elias -- no way.”


	15. Navy Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out that chapter count y'all. I've developed the plot further, so there will be a few additional chapters than previously planned. 
> 
> enjoy!

The world is in full, spectacular color when Jonathan Sims wakes abruptly from his coma. From the moment Jon’s eyes open, he’s thinking of Martin. He hopes, for a moment, to find him sitting at his bedside in the plastic lime green chair, or to see him returning minutes after Jon had woken up with a mug of dark mint tea and a relieved smile. 

Instead, Basira sits with him, catching him up on the last six months at the institute while he sits in his navy blue hospital bed, wearing a dusky blue hospital gown and clutching at the off-white statement page in his hand. It takes him longer than it should to ask her about Daisy, as caught up as he is with the tragedy of Tim’s death and the triumph of Elias being locked away. 

“Missing.” Basira says. “Official records say dead, but…”

“You’re still seeing in colors.” He finishes. 

She glares at him, but it’s blunted by the fading hope in her eyes. “Don’t Know things about me like that.”

“I didn’t have to.” he says as gently as he can. It seems a change of subject is in order. “How’s Martin?”

She shrugs. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.” She says, “He’s been working with the new head of the institute, Peter Lukas. Making himself scarce, won’t talk to any of us on the rare occasion that we see him at all." 

“Oh.” Jon says. The monosyllable feels hollow in his mouth.

It must be something in his voice, or perhaps Basira is just that good at reading him. 

“He’s your soulmate, isn’t he?” she asks, without really needing to know the answer. “When did you go color for him?”

“The night before the Unknowing.” Jon replies. “Tim was the only one I told.”

“Shit.”

“Yes.” 

Despite his six month coma, quick tests prove that Jon is fully recovered and able to walk out of the hospital the same day. Perplexed hospital staff insist he use a wheelchair to get to Basira’s car, as though convinced that the six months he spent in bed would catch up to him sometime between his hospital room and the car door. Jon returns to the institute the same day, climbing the front steps with no difficulty, still thinking of Martin. Hoping to see him, despite Basira’s warning that he had been difficult to find lately. 

He thinks of the day he’d tried to come back early during his recovery from the Prentiss incident, and Martin had met him outside, not even allowed him into the building, and sent him home. Now, here he is, arriving back at the institute after six months of being all but dead, and Martin is nowhere to be seen. 

The whole day, some part of him hopes to see Martin. He hopes to catch a glimpse of his cozy army green sweater in the hall or that he might drop by to deliver tea in Jon’s favorite mug, which is purple, round, and bowl-like, with the name of a local coffee shop on the side in black cursive. He longs for the sight of Martin’s forest green eyes or strawberry blonde curls, for the light brown freckles that dust his nose, or the pale pink of his lips stretched into an easy smile. 

By the end of the day, Jon aches all over in a way his coma had not made him feel. Before Jon fell into his coma, he had found out that Martin Blackwood is his soulmate. Sometime in the six months since, or perhaps simply in the time since he has woken up, Jon has realized something else; 

He is in love with Martin Blackwood.


	16. Maroon

Martin is starting to notice a pattern in the problems he’s had over the past few years. Namely, that each and every one of them can be brought back to Jonathan Sims. It’s not that he thinks they’re Jon’s fault, exactly, certainly not Jon’s doing, but he can’t help but notice that every time he’s had a problem, Jon has, in some capacity, been involved. 

This time, Jon is very much the problem in that he won’t stop seeking Martin out, and everytime he finds him, they have a conversation that tugs Martin’s heart back to Jon, makes him long to abandon the Lonely and his plans and go back to the man he loves. (the man that maybe, just maybe, might now love him too, though Jon hasn’t said so outright.)

“Martin, that’s a lovely maroon sweater.” Jon says the first time he manages to corner Martin. 

Martin’s heart stops. 

He turns slowly toward Jon, whose eyes now appear dark grey to Martin. He wants to ask Jon how long he’d been able to see them, or simply say thank you and compliment Jon on a color that he’s wearing. He wants to fall into their easy companionship that he’d seen glimpses of in their best moments. 

But he can’t, not least because he has no idea what colors Jon is wearing anymore. It just looks black and grey. 

Jon sees the emotion on Martin’s face, he can see it in Jon’s eyes. He wants to cross the room and kiss Jon, so badly. 

But he has to think of the Lonely, of Peter, of his plans and the pain he’s been through to follow them over the past months. 

He swallows hard and meets Jon’s eyes, then looks down as casually as he can and plucks at his sweater. 

“Looks grey to me.” He comments, forcing a casual tone into the words, as though he’s commenting on the weather or a weekend with no plans. 

He can see the hurt in Jon’s eyes. 

“Martin, I know you can see-”

He cuts him off. “No, Jon, I can’t. I haven’t been able to see them for a while now.”

“That’s not how it works.” Jon tries, desperation edging into his voice. “You tried to tell me that you were seeing them the night before we left for the Unknowing. I’m sorry, for running off by the way, I-”

“That was months ago.” Martin says, fighting to keep his face neutral. “I don’t remember what I was going to tell you.”

And with that he turns on his heel and leaves, knowing that if he looks back, Jon will see the tears streaming down his face, 

Peter comes to see him about it later that day, making a fog-filled entrance into his office. Martin doesn’t look up from the excel sheet on his screen, even though Peter’s appearance is making the whole thing glitch into various shades of gray.

“Here to lecture me on seeing him?” he asks. 

Peter shakes his head. “No, actually. For the first time talking to him again, you handled that relatively well. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Martin sighs. “I didn’t run into him on purpose. He can just Know where I am now, how am I supposed to keep him away?” 

Peter shrugs. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Elias and I always have.”

He disappears again, and Martin sighs and returns to his work.


	17. Green

“Hello, Detective.” It doesn’t matter how many times she hears it; Elias Bouchard’s voice curdles Basira’s blood every time. 

For a man in prison for Murder, Elias is far too comfortable. True, he’s wearing the hideous tan jumpsuit marking him as an inmate, but other than that, there’s little to indicate the man is serving an extended sentence at all. His hair is done immaculately, icy blue eyes bright with dangerous intelligence, back straight. Though his wrists had been locked together with a pair of shiny handcuffs for the duration of the last few visits, they’re notably absent from his wrists this time. 

Basira masks her revulsion as she sits down across from him in the rigid plastic chair, fixing him with a glare. 

“I heard that Jon has made a remarkable recovery.” He says, smirk stretched across pearly white teeth. 

“Something that looks like him certainly did.” she says coldly. "Whether it’s the man who fell into the coma six months ago remains to be seen.”

‘I assure you, detective.” He says. “You have nothing to worry about when it comes to him.”

“You said you had information on where Daisy is.” She replies. “That’s all I’m here for.” 

He makes a falsely pitying expression. “So dedicated, so focused on her. Peter and I haven’t spoken in a while now.”

Basira’s done with this. She rises from her seat and makes as if to leave before whipping around to punch him squarely in the jaw with a thud so satisfying she’ll be replaying it in her mind for years to come. The guards make no motion to stop her. Bouchard glances around at the guards with a hand held delicately to his jaw, face a mask of indignation.

“Where is she.” She stays standing. She won’t be here for longer than she needs to.

Bouchard winces, hand still held gently to his jaw. “All in good time, Detective. I have some other information you may find intriguing.”

He holds a hand up in the direction of the nearest guard, who pulls a pale golden fountain pen and sheet of paper from his breast pocket. 

“That’s the pen I signed my contract with.” She notes. 

"Indeed.” 

The guard passes the paper and pen off to Elias without hesitation. 

Elias bends over it, uncapping the pen and jotting something down in his sprawling handwriting, green ink flawlessly looping over the paper. 

He finishes his note and shoves it across the table to Basira before leaning back in his seat, smirk taking up residence on his face once more.

“You have questions.” He says, smug satisfaction drenching his features.

“You shouldn’t have that.” Basira states furiously. 

“Indeed,” Elias says. “Yet there are perks that come with knowing just a little too much. For example, Paul over here,” he juts his finger in the guards direction. 

“Paul’s husband is grayscale color blind. The sight disorder kind, not the lack of soulmate color kind. Paul gave up on finding his soulmate a long time ago, but he wanted to settle down, so he lied to him the night they met, claiming he’d gone color. He sees in grey to this day, but there’s no way for his husband to know that, and so they’ve been together for seven years now with his husband none the wiser that he's been duped.” 

He glances languidly at Paul. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if someone on the outside told poor, innocent Kevin about your lie? The poor man just thinks he was lucky to find his soulmate. “It’d be an awful shame if he found out.” 

“So you’re threatening the guards in exchange for special privileges.” Basira summarizes. “I’m sure the other inmates don’t like that.”

Elias shrugs. “They absolutely hate it, but it took one inmate who told everyone he was in for petty theft when he was actually in for assaulting another inmate’s wife, and no one’s said a thing since.”

Basira frowns and turns the page Elias had handed her over in his hands. 

Elias nods to it. “That contains information on Paul’s mistreatment of his husband, assistance in finding your lovely Alice Tonner, and notes on an upcoming ritual for the Dark that I recently caught wind of. Do stop it, Detective. I’d rather not face the Dark’s apocalypse from prison.”

Basira turns to the guard. “I won’t use this for his reasons.” she states, looking him directly in his pale, pudgy face. “But if Bouchard gets out, that’s a completely different story.”

Paul nods, somehow going two shades paler, and Basira stalks out without a backward glance.


	18. Pale White

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Folks. Apologies for my absence last week. Just FYI, I'll be unable to access the internet next week, but will try to resume regular posting on Wednesdays in the weeks following. Enjoy!

As Jon descends the rough hewn steps of the Buried’s coffin, the colors around him fade, gradually going from muddy greens and dusky browns on the steps to the close pitch blackness of its depths. Jon forges ahead through the darkness, colors absent in the Buried at its purest, even if Jon could see where he was going. 

Color is something the entities can’t quite touch. No matter how blue the Vast’s sky or how brown the depths of the Buried may be, color is far beyond their scope. Jon Knows that any eye avatar who sees in greyscale can’t simply ask the Eye for the name of a color, because out of everything in the world, color and where it comes from is beyond the entities’ grasp. Maybe Gerry had been just a little bit wrong about the absence of gods of positive emotions, or perhaps, color was to the entities as hope was to all of the evil that was released from Pandora’s box in the ancient greek myth. 

Any thoughts of color disappear quickly down here, though. Jon reaches out for the pale off white of his rib every so often as he struggles deeper into the depths of the coffin, sensing more than seeing the direction that Daisy might be in. It’s far too dark in these tight, cavelike corridors and mud filled passages. Despite it all, Jon struggles onward, promising himself with every step to get Daisy back to the surface. 

_____

Jonathan Sims is an idiot. 

This is an undeniable fact that Martin has decided as of about two hours ago when he discovered a note on his desk informing him of Jon’s disappearance into the coffin. He knows even as he piles the tape recorders higher on the coffin that Peter will have words for him later, but he doesn’t care. All he cares about right now is giving Jon a better chance than his rib gave him of getting out of the coffin alive. So he piles tape recorders high around the coffin, some of them running with Jon’s voice from past statements, others switched to record the cacophony of Jon’s recorder voice overlapping and the clacking of tape recorders falling to the ground. 

Whether they’re on or not, recording or just playing back old tapes, it’s all entirely of their own accord. Martin has seen the alluring flash of red on the tape recorders’ record button (the first flash of color he's seen in months) but hasn’t made so much as considered turning one on. He tries to ignore the pang in his heart. 

Basira paces by as he leaves Jon’s office. He passes right by her in the hall, unseen.

\---

Jon emerges from the depths of the coffin to find a flood of tape recorders surrounding the coffin on all sides. A few clatter off the lid when he cautiously lifts it from the base, Daisy squinting in the dim light of his office. They drag themselves out and firmly shut the lid, Jon collapsing against his desk while Daisy takes the floor. 

“Jon, you fucking idiot, what did you think-” Basira exclaims, barging into his office in full disappointed parent mode. She trails off. 

“Hi.” Daisy manages. 

Basira just gapes at her for a long moment, eyes blinking fast as tears well up. Her eyes flicker briefly to Jon, then back to her soulmate. 

“Oh my god.”

She’s on the floor with Daisy in seconds, cradling her in her arms despite the dirt caking Daisy’s skin and the musty scent of a woman trapped in an underground nightmare for months. Her hair has grown out longer than Jon’s ever seen it, and like the rest of her, it’s covered in dust and mud, but Basira doesn’t seem to care as she strokes a hand through it and presses her lips to Daisy’s forehead. 

A smile pulls at Jon’s lips. While he’d love to give them a moment to reunite in private, he’s not certain his legs work just now. Basira meets his eyes and nods at him, ever so slightly, before returning to whispering promises of forever in Daisy’s ear. 

Jon looks away. It’s the least he can do.


	19. Dark Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back folks! just a quick note/disclaimer: This chapter contains dialogue lifted directly from MAG 154: Bloody Mary. I don't own it, I can't take credit for anything other than the dialogue tags and thoughts in between. Enjoy!

In the moments immediately following the end of the tape, there’s little Jon can do but issue a single, solitary “fuck”. Somehow, despite the horror inherent in destroying one’s own eyes, he can’t help but think of the tragedy of it. In order to escape the gaze and grasp of the Entity of Knowledge and Sight, the Eye demands the permanent destruction of not just one’s vision, but with it, the ability to see color. 

He’ll do it though, if Martin agrees to come. Anything for Martin. 

He must look a mess as he dashes up the back stairs and through the library, eyes wild, hair unkempt, frantic in his need to deliver this particular knowledge to Martin. A few librarians eye him in wary alarm as he rushes by, probably wondering whether they should run too. 

He bursts through the door without knocking, and Martin jumps about a foot in the air, settling into quiet exasperation as he shuts the door behind himself, leaning against it and suddenly realizing that this isn’t exactly easy news to deliver. ‘Hi Martin, we can live happily ever after if we destroy our eyesight, but I just wanted to check with you first! How does that sound to you? Are you up for that?’ 

Martin is dressed in washed out colors, grey pants and an eggshell blue sweater with a white collar peeking over the top. There are bags under his eyes like plum stains, his strawberry blonde hair several shades lighter, though Jon’s not certain whether that’s because of the terrible lighting in the office or attributable to a more supernatural reason. He looks exhausted by the mere sight of Jon. 

“Jesus, You alright?” Martin musters up, “you look like hell.”

“Oh! Uh, Ri, Right, I um, God, I get weak. Hungry, I guess, sort of. I,I’ve been trying to avoid, being, um- sticking to old statements?” Jon stammers, “Thank you for your little intervention, by the way.”

“Look, I wouldn’t have to if you’d hadn’t been-” Martin begins warily. 

“Yes no, I know, I know;” Jon cringes. 

They stumble through the rest of a frankly painful conversation until Jon finds a way to interject, “ that’s not why I’m here, I-”

“Jon. Calm down. What do you want?”

Jon takes a deep breath, “I know. I know what you said, but I just-I think I’ve found a way for us to leave the Institute.”

There’s an incredibly long, incredibly painful pause. Martin breaks it, hopeful skepticism permeating his voice. 

“O- kay…?”

“Yeah. But it’s-” Jon hesitates, “It’s pretty drastic.”

Martin’s chuckles, a low, hollow, unfamiliar thing that’s nothing like what Jon had heard from him before. 

“What, you’ve got to gouge your eyes out, or something?”

A long moment stretches out between them. Jon hadn’t been sure how to break this particular news to him, especially with the Eye making every word difficult to get out, but Martin’s just made it incredibly easy for him. Had he known? As the quiet stretches on, something in Martin’s face shifts. 

“Fuck off.” Martin says incredulously, “Right. Uh, uh, right, uh…Erm…like, I mean…permanently? Or…”

“I, I, I don’t know; I suppose.” Jon says helplessly. “I,If your vision comes back, the Beholding probably does as well- probably. But i-it’s not like it’s easy to only blind yourself temporarily anyways i- I-”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, uh…” Martin stammers, “H-Have you told the others, or?"

At this, Jon meets his eyes. They’re several shades lighter than the deep forest green he remembers, pale and worn like the woods in early winter. 

“No. you’re the first.”

“Why?” 

Jon finds himself unable to answer, despite knowing the answer as well as he knows anything else these days. “Uh, because… because, because I trust you. I, I’m trying to think about what to do, and I…If I did try this, I don’t want to do it alone. But we could leave here, you and me. Escape.”

“Jon. Don’t do this.” 

“Do what?” 

“Make it my decision.”

He’s frustrated, slipping away, out of Jon’s grasp. 

“I’m not-” Jon protests weakly.

I mean,” Martin lets out another hopeless, terrible laugh, “Could you even survive at this stage? Is there anything else keeping you alive?'

“Uh, I,I don’t know.” “I don’t- know. But… maybe it’s worth it? The risk- you and me, together, getting out of here-"

Martin sniffles. He’s gone, he’s out of Jon’s reach, he can just tell. 

Jon keeps trying anyways, “-one way or another.”

‘Jon.”

It’s one syllable, but somehow, it breaks Jon’s resolve in its entirety. 

He sighs, “No. No, of course, this was stupid; you have your own plans going on, don’t you?”

Martin looks away. Jon’s never felt farther from him.“Just- Look, I need to see this thing through with Peter to the end. If, If what he’s saying is even half true, I need to be there.

“But what if you don’t? Jon pleads. “We could just leave. I mean, whatever their plan is for me, I am damn sure that doing that isn’t it. I’d derail everything- we could derail everything, and then just- leave!”

But Martin just laughs again, each chuckle completely devoid of humor. 

‘...What?” he tries. 

“Nothing; It’s just-” he’s still laughing, “It’s just ironic, that’s all.’

Martin gets it, finally, Jon thinks. He can see it in his eyes. 

“Martin…” he tries weakly. 

“Who are you kidding, Jon? You’re not going to do any of that."

“I, I could.” Jon protests.

“But you won’t. That’s why you came to me, isn’t it? You know I can’t do it, not now; you don’t want to blind yourself; you don’t want to die; what you want is a reason to not do those things, so- you come to me. Well, you’re welcome. Because I can’t follow you on this one.”

There’s a flicker of grey in Jon’s vision. “The Lonely’s really got you, hasn’t it?”

“You know, I think it always did.” Martin says. 

Jon makes his excuses and stumbles from Martin’s office. The door clicks firmly behind him with a note of finality. He takes the long way back to his office, foregoing the staff stairwell and library for the front entrance to the Archives. Back in his office, he slumps into his desk chair and stares around the office. His purple tea mug sits dry and unused on a desk scattered with light yellow manila folders, each marked with color tabs to indicate follow up projects and entity associations. The tape recorder is still sitting on his desk, Eric’s statement cassette tape resting inside. The umber brown of his desk peeking out from under the catastrophe on top. 

Jon sighs heavily. He can see all of these colors because of Martin. Martin, who’s been loyal and kind when Jon had done nothing to earn it, who is throwing himself head first into the Lonely for reasons currently unknown to Jon. He’s got to trust that he knows what he’s doing and has the situation under control, even though Jon’s instinct is to put a stop to whatever’s happening.   
Martin’s right about at least one thing though, and it’s that where they’ve found themselves is deeply, terribly ironic. Now that Jon finally longs for Martin’s gaze, his touch, his gentle laughs and cups of tea, they’re nowhere to be found. Martin spent years vying for Jon’s returned affection, and now that Jon finally wants to receive it, he simply can’t.  
He just hopes it’s not too late. 

He really ought to tell the others what he’s learned. It won’t be easy. Telling Martin hadn’t just been a matter of finding the words, he’d also had to fight against the Eye with every word. Maybe he could call a meeting, or tell Basira and have her pass it on to everyone else. 

It’s a gruesome sacrifice, but he’s got to give them the option. Basira and Daisy see in color, and that might make it a harder choice for them. He’s not certain about Melanie. Regardless, they all deserve to know. 

Choosing not to Know their location, he pokes his head out into the hall for any passing assistants, then trudges down to the break room. Melanie is sipping on a cup of tea and scrolling through her phone at the table. She looks thin and worn, and the fire is gone from her eyes. Jon’s not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing. 

Jon clears his throat to alert Melanie to his presence. 

“Have you seen Basira and Daisy?” He asks awkwardly. “We’re having a, er, Archival Staff meeting.”

Melanie’s eyes narrow and her scowl deepens. “I’m not doing any work anymore, Jon.”

“I know.” Jon says. “This is...kind of the opposite of work related?”

“They’re not here right now.” Melanie’s phone is down on the table now. “I don’t know when they’ll be back either. Basira said something about following up on something or other.”

“Right.” Jon mutters. He’ll have to tell them on their own. 

“What’s the opposite of work related?” Melanie asks. 

Jon comes further into the break room, still somewhat wary of Melanie. “I just-I think you should know that there’s a way to quit.”

Melanie’s eyebrows raise high, “thought that wasn’t possible.”

“I found a tape.” Jon explains. “It wasn’t easy, it was one of the ones the Eye didn’t want me to see, but it’s possible, one of Gertrude’s assistants did, it’s just”

“Spit it out then.”

“It’s not pleasant.” Jon warns her. 

Melanie barks out a laugh. “Nothing about this place is.”

A long moment stretches out between them. Of the five of them, Melanie seems most desperate for a way out, but Jon’s not sure whether she’ll go to this extreme. 

“You have to gouge your eyes out.” He says finally. “Or just destroy them. It sounds like as long as they don’t work, that’s enough.”

“Shit.” Melanie’s voice is hushed. 

“Yes.” Jon agrees. “That’s pretty much what Martin said too.”

“You’ve seen him then?” 

“Briefly. He ah, wasn’t interested.”

Melanie takes a sip of her tea and hums in response. 

They sit in silence for a long time. Melanie breaks it. 

“Thank you for telling me. I’ll have to think about it, and talk to...some people.”

“Let me know what you decide.” Jon says. 

Melanie nods. “I think I’m actually going to...go. This is a lot to think about.”

“Right.” 

She slips out, leaving her finished tea mug on the table. It’s a dark blue mug with the What The Ghost logo on it in white. Jon looks at it for a long moment, rises, and goes to the sink to clean it. He’d meant to ask Melanie to tell Basira and Daisy the news, but since he hadn’t gotten the chance, he’ll have to tell them himself whenever he sees them next. It doesn’t seem like the type of news to deliver via text.


	20. Coda: Black

Melanie King is nothing if not stubborn.

Stubborn enough to build one hell of a youtube career, stubborn enough to repeatedly attempt to murder her former boss, stubborn enough to refuse to serve the Beholding by doing any work for the institute, and stubborn enough to push her way through the physical pain of quitting.

So though the Doctors and Georgie had insisted she not attempt to move around the house unassisted while she was recovering, Melanie was currently standing up, fumbling for the water bottle on the nightstand, determined to get herself her own damn refill. Georgie was out for groceries, and Melanie would rather bang her head on various objects around the house than lay here helpless.

Finally having retrieved the water bottle, she straightened and followed the bed along it’s edge, knowing the door was on the left hand corner of the opposite wall. She straightened, reached her arms out, and took a tentative step forward until she felt the wall on the opposite side and began following it to the left.

She’d be able to navigate the apartment without relying on edges of walls and furniture someday. She just didn’t have a long cane for navigation yet. Finally, a few careful steps along the wall later, she found the ridges of the door frame. A dark, rich tan, she remembered. It’s wood was smooth to the touch, the dark metal door knob cold in her fingers. She opened it carefully, easing her way out as something soft wedged itself against her legs, and next thing she knew, Melanie was falling, water bottle clattering away.

“Shit!”

“Mraow!”

The Admiral recovered before Melanie did, quiet tip tap noises on the floor indicating him running off to elsewhere in the tiny apartment.

Melanie boosted herself up by her palms and felt around on her hands and knees for the bottle. She’d find it. The bedroom opened directly out into the living room and kitchen, but it couldn’t have gone far.

“Melanie??”

Melanie’s shoulders collapsed in defeat, still on her hands and knees. Georgie's footsteps approached her, a pair of hands appearing on her shoulders.

“I wanted more water.” She says softly. “I-I didn’t want to wait. Wanted to do it myself.”

A quiet, sad exhale came from Georgie. “How’d you fall?”

“The Admiral.”

Georgie chuckled. “He’s done that to me a fair few times too.”

Despite herself, Melanie cracked a smile.

“Let’s get you up.” Georgie rose from her squat beside Melanie, who reached up. Georgie’s fingers wrapped over hers, a firm weight in Melanie’s void.

Georgie let go of one hand and reached down for the water bottle. Melanie feels it press onto her hand, the plastic of it light in her hand.

Georgie leads her down across the room, far enough ahead to lead her away from any obstacles. They stop at the counter, the hiss of the faucet taking up the quiet of the room. Georgie guides her hand and the open water bottle under it until it feels heavy in her palm.

“Let’s go sit on the couch.” Georgie suggests.

Melanie nods mutely, and Georgie leads her back across the room until they’re both seated on the couch. She nestles herself firmly next to her girlfriend, tilting her head onto Georgie’s shoulder. She presses a kiss to Melanie’s head, and hums happily.

The world is all black now. Melanie can’t bring herself to regret it. But something has been niggling at the back of her mind since she quit, a small fear that has been threatening to grow into something much worse.

“You do still have them, right?” She blurts, wishing now more than ever that she could see to judge her girlfriend’s expression.

“Do I still have what?” Georgie asks, and Melanie can feel her shifting forward to set the water bottle down on the nearest surface. One of Georgie’s hands starts running through her hair in slow, soothing motions.

“Your colors,” Melanie says softly.

She hadn’t really meant to ask at all, but the idea that Georgie might not have her colors anymore because of Melanie’s choice is so horrifying to her that she can’t not know whether she’s taken them away from her.

“Oh Melanie.” Georgie makes a low, sad noise. “They’re all still there, I promise.”

“Can you...describe them to me?” Melanie asks.

Georgie’s voice breaks. “Of course, darling. The sky is beautiful right now, you know. It’s all hazy blues and warm pinks, like early spring air and too sweet candy.” She presses a kiss to Melanie’s forehead. Melanie gropes through her dark world for her girlfriend’s hand, as Georgie continues to stroke her hair and describe the oranges of the admirals’ fur as he hops up next to them and curls up beside Melanie, the transgression of tripping over him already forgotten. Georgie describes the blues of the flowers in a vase on the windowsill, the pale blue of the blanket she throws over them, and the grey-green of the soft rug below their feet.

Melanie has seen them all before, of course. But it’s nice to have a reminder, a guide to picture them in her world of overwhelming blackness. She falls asleep there on Georgie’s shoulder, in safety and warmth and blackness.


	21. Coda: Grayscale

Peter Lukas gifted Elias Bouchard with colors a long time ago. 

Elias Bouchard did not return the favor. 

It’s not that he couldn’t have, or that they aren’t soulmates, but rather that Peter likes the world in grayscale. Though he saw the world in full, glorious color for a moment when he and Elias first met, back when “Elias Bouchard” was still “James Wright”, he just as quickly refused the color in favor of the Lonely’s comforting, familiar grays.

Sometimes though, when he’s out on his boat on the open ocean, far away from anyone except his crew, he allows the navy blues of the ocean below and misty shades of the sky above to slip through into his vision, and thinks of his (ex)husband.

Somewhere, far away, Elias is usually doing the same.


	22. Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned! This was a tough one, but I hope you enjoy. Please note that this chapter contains major season four finale spoilers.

Jon feels a bolt of fear worse than anything he’s ever felt when the world goes gray. He stumbles mid sprint and collapses to the tunnel floor, caught off guard by the sudden return of the grayscale to his vision. 

Martin is gone. He’s dead. He has to be, there’s no other explanation for it, really. That’s what one’s vision going grayscale means. 

But Jon reaches out with the Eye, and even as he does he can feel the colors reaching for him, can feel Martin out there, somewhere. The colors he’d initially taken to be gone are still there, just barely. They hover around the edges of his vision, slipping slowly away. He gets to his feet and continues his sprint through the tunnels, knowing the way as well as he knows the names and hues of the colors Martin gifted him. He can’t lose him. 

He won’t. 

The Panopticon is all dark hues, but Elias, no - Jonah, is waiting for him at the top of the observation tower in it’s center, light blue eyes piercing through him as he explains the risks of the feat Jon doesn’t hesitate to undertake. He extends his senses for the Lonely, finally feeling the cold tendrils of mist envelop him as he slips into it. The rocks of the beach crunch below his feet as he desperately calls out for Martin in a landscape of grays.

“It’s odd, really.’ comes Peter’s taunting voice from somewhere in the mist. “You each think you’re so focused on the other, but how much do you really know each other? How much time have you spent together when not working, or bickering, or fleeing from that latest thing that wants to kill you? So. What are you seeking? The image you’ve each created of the other? The people you think you love don’t exist. Not really. And that’s a very lonely place to be.”

“Shut up!” Jon says, recalling the sight of Martin’s forest green eyes as he peers through the mist. “Martin!” 

“He doesn’t… want… to see you.” Peter’s voice pierces the mist again. “He lost the colors months ago, you know.”

“Then let me hear that from him.” Jon snaps. 

(Forest green eyes, Chestnut brown tea, strawberry blonde curls, navy blue jumper, pale, pinkish lips, pinker when he chews on the lower one, bright yellow sunflower mug with a dumb pun on it, light brown freckles)

“Just go.” Peter says, voice more distant than ever. 

“Make me,” Jon spits. 

Nothing happens. Jon grins widely. “Unless you can’t. The Lonely and the Eye aren’t too far apart, are they? Not really. What good’s being alone if you don’t know how alone you truly are? What good is not seeing colors unless there are colors to see...Which means… well, I think you’re worried. You know I’ll find him eventually, and you know I can find you.”

Jon hesitates.“Hm. Thought so.” 

There’s no response. Peter has disappeared, and with him the fog has dispersed ever so slightly. 

Martin sits a short distance away, collapsed in a heap on the pebbles of the beach. 

“Martin!” Jon shouts, sprinting the short distance to his soulmate and kneeling with him. 

Martin looks up, and his eyes are grey, his skin sickly pale and his hair washed out. “Jon?” He murmurs. 

Jon reaches to touch him, to run his hands through the formerly vibrant hair but stops short.

“I - I’m here.” He stammers. “I came for you.” 

“Why?” Martin asks, voice as distant as Peter’s had been. 

“…I thought you might be lost.” Jon says.

“Are you real?” Martin asks. 

Jon reaches for Martin’s hand. but to his horror, Martin is ghost like, and jon’s hand goes straight through. “Yes! Yes, I-I am. Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

Martin pulls away, shaking his head. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

Martin’s voice sounds farther than ever.

(Forest green eyes, Chestnut brown tea, strawberry blonde curls, navy blue jumper, pale, pinkish lips, pinker when he chews on the lower one, bright yellow sunflower mug with a dumb pun on it, light brown freckles) 

“Why?” Jon asks.

Martin doesn’t look at him. “This is where I should be. It feels right.”’

“Martin, don’t say that.”

(Forest green eyes, Chestnut brown tea, strawberry blonde curls, navy blue jumper, pale, pinkish lips, pinker when he chews on the lower one, bright yellow sunflower mug with a dumb pun on it, light brown freckles) 

“Nothing hurts here.” Martin insists. “It’s just quiet. Even the fear is gentle here.”

“This isn’t right. This isn’t you.”

“It is, though.” Martin chuckles. I really loved you, you know”

Jon shouts into the Lonely’s void as Martin dissolves away, cursing. 

It was unfortunate for Peter, really, to come along to Jon when he did. Jon hears his taunting voice, reminding him of just how alone he really is in this moment. The colors at the edge of his vision dull as Peter’s voice swirls in the air around him. 

(Forest green eyes, Chestnut brown tea, strawberry blonde curls, navy blue jumper, pale, pinkish lips, pinker when he chews on the lower one, bright yellow sunflower mug with a dumb pun on it, light brown freckles) 

Through it all, Jon remembers Martin’s colors. He tugs gently at each memory, extracting each shade and holding it within himself as a reminder that he is loved and that he loves Martin Blackwood. He’s not leaving here without him. 

He pulls every word he can from Peter until the sea captain won’t give any more. When it’s either his life or the secrets he chooses to share, Peter chooses Elias. As Jon stands over the spot where Peter’s body had exploded and the remnants had dissolved into mist, he finds himself only mildly shocked by what he’d just done. There’s something, or rather, someone, more important on his mind than the man he’d just murdered. 

Martin isn’t hard to find again. Whether it’s because of Peter’s death or simply luck, Jon isn’t sure, but he’s thankful all the same.

“Martin, Look at me.” he pleads. 

Martin’s once-green eyes rise to Jon’s face, not quite meeting his eyes. Jon ducks his head to force eye contact, and Martin’s eyes flutter briefly away before returning to Jon’s face. Jon reaches for him hesitantly, like he’s afraid of scaring off a particularly jumpy wild animal. His fingers brush Martin’s cheek, and his eyelashes flutter. Jon thinks he may have seen a flash of ginger among them. His eyes shift away. 

“Look at me.” Jon echoes himself. “And tell me what you see.”

In that moment, Jon pushes outward at his love for the man in front of him. A pink blush returns to Martin’s face, the barest hint of green appears in his eyes and ginger in his curls. Martin is lit up by the glow of colors in a landscape of greys, and judging by his face, he’s seeing it too. 

“I see you, Jon.” tears spring to Martin’s eyes. And Jon adjusts his hand from where it’s resting on Martin’s cheek to push them away with his thumb. 

“I see you.” Martin repeats. 

“Martin,” Jon gasps. 

The pair collapse into each other, Martin gripping Jon like he’s a life preserver in the open ocean. They spend a long time that way. 

“I was on my own.” Martin gasps when they finally pull back. “I was all on my own.”

Jon doesn’t dare let go of Martin for even an instant. “Not any more,” He swears. “Come on, let’s go home.”

The color is already fading from Martin’s hair and eyes, and Jon is afraid it will disappear completely and Martin will disappear from his grasp if they spend any longer than they have to. He takes Martin’s hand, squeezes it gently, and leads Martin home. 

\- 

Their hands stay connected all the way out of the lonely and back through the tunnels, neither saying much as the grays of the lonely give way to the darker hues of the tunnels. Martin chews on his lip the whole way, and Jon is relives when they emerge back into the world above, which is overflowing with the colors Jon has become used to over the past year. 

Martin's grip on his hand tightens as he surveys the world. He's biting his lip again, pink filling them out around the white corner of his teeth. 

"I still can't..." Martin murmurs, tears springing to his eyes. "The colors, for a moment they were back, on-on the beach, but they're gone, Jon"

Jon pulls him into a hug right there on the pavement, burying a hand deep into Martin's curls as he does so.  
"It'll be okay," He promises. "they'll be back, Martin." 

Martin grips at his shoulders as passersby jostle past them. Jon's not normally one to show affection in public, but Martin needs is right now, and judging the chill leaving his bones with every moment spent in Martin's embrace, Jon needed it too. 

The buzzing of Jon's cellphone breaks them apart. Jon fumbles to answer it, hand still locked in Martin's grip. 

"Hello?'

"Jon! Thank god, did you get him?" Basira's voice is urgent, nearly overcome by the sounds of police sirens and people. 

Jon tightens his grip on Martin's hand. "Yes, he's with me." 

"Good. Listen, Jon. The Institute is a crime scene right now, what with Daisy, and Elias getting out-"

"Jonah." Jon mutters quietly. 

Basira ignores him. "there's a house, that you two should get to as soon as soon as possible. Daisy leaves a van in a parking garage near Covent Gardens. It's got what you need a for a few weeks in it. The directions to the house are there too. Follow it to the letter, don't take the underground or a cab, and Jon?

"Yes"

Basira hesitates, her voice softened. "keep him safe, and don't lose him."

Jon looks at Martin, who is glancing cautiously around the street. his ginger hair is still slightly washed out in shade, but the brilliance of his eyes have returned in full. He looks to Jon, and Jon sees love reflected back there. 

"I will." He promises. 

Basira sighs, and hangs up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 158-160 are probably my favorite episodes in the series. I hope I did it justice here.  
> Also, in case you hadn't already guessed, the fan art of MAG 159: the Last, in which the shades are washed out and then go full color when Jon delivers the line, "look at me, and tell me what you see", are largely what inspired this fanfic. Special thanks to everyone who made one of those.


	23. Black and White

When Martin wakes up he opens his eyes and promptly closes them again. Jon is wrapped around him like an octopus, hair tickling his nose, face buried in his chest. Martin wants to imagine that he still sees in color, and that’s much harder to do when sight is all it takes to prove him wrong. 

Jon hums happily and nestles deeper into Martin’s chest. Martin can feel his heart beating hard there, as if it’s trying to break through his rib cage to be closer to Jon. Frankly, Martin can relate. Even wrapped up together like this, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be close enough to Jon.   
Jon’s hair is still tickling his nose. He feels a sneeze coming on, but he really doesn’t want to move or wake Jon and risk losing this moment. They hadn’t fallen asleep like this, so it must have happened during the night. What if Jon is embarrassed to be cuddled up to him? What if he takes the couch tomorrow night? What if he leaves-  
It’s too much. Martin’s ticklish at the best of times, and he can’t hold this one back. 

He sneezes, and Jon jerks awake at the movement. He seems startled, but to Martin’s joy, he curls back in. Less close this time, but with his face turned upwards to look at Martin’s. 

“Morning” Jon says, voice still heavy with sleep. 

“Morning.” Martin echoes, marveling at the mere fact that he has this man in his arms right now. 

“What time is it?” Jon asks.

“Dunno.” In truth, Martin’s watch is still around his wrist, and it wouldn’t be hard to check. But he’s not about to ask Jon to move just to check the time. “Sun’s out though.”

Jon twists in his arms to look, hums, and returns to his spot nestled in Martin’s arms.   
Minutes later, Jon’s breath evens out, and Martin leans back ever so slightly to check. He’s fallen asleep again. 

Martin can’t blame him. After leaving London in the late afternoon the previous day, they hadn’t gotten to the safehouse until four in the morning. Jon had insisted on driving the whole way there, despite repeated offers from Martin to take over. Jon had just squeezed his hand where they were locked together between their seats and shaken his head. 

Both had been wary of the cabin when they first arrived, what with it being a remote, worn sort of place owned by Daisy. For what it was, the inside was surprisingly cozy, with a tiny but functional kitchen, a fireplace, a couch, working water and electricity, and was surprisingly free of bloodstains. Whether that was because Daisy’s use of it or an especially good clean up job remained unclear. There was a bed (one, singular, solitary bed) up a narrow flight of stairs. Martin had started to offer to take the couch downstairs, but Jon had rejected this offer like he’d rejected Martin’s offers to take a turn driving.   
“Honestly, Martin, it’s big enough for two.”  
And that had been that. As it was, they weren’t using the space for two so much as Jon was half on top of Martin, leaving a good chunk of the bed empty. 

Martin falls asleep again not long after Jon, and the two stay there, tangled together and at ease in each other’s arms.


	24. Coda: Shades of Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for my long absence, but I have returned! Hopefully updates will be back to the Wednesday schedule after this as I have the next few chapters already written. Please note that this chapter contains major spoilers for the Season 4 finale.

Jonah Magnus feels it when Peter Lukas passes. 

The fact of it runs him through him like shards of glass, each embedding themselves deeply in his heart from a different angle. The Knowledge of it is clear in his mind. He Knows almost before the colors fade from his vision. He grasps desperately at each as they slide away, resigned only to memories of pale gray-blue eyes staring adoringly his way, a sea captain’s navy coat swishing into mist, a single icy blue eye in the palm of his hand, about to be fixed into a new socket. 

He reaches for the Beholding as the last of them fade away, pleading with an unmerciful god for the only sight it is completely unable (or perhaps, simply unwilling) to grant him. It does not respond. 

He’d known the risk, the possibility, when he’d sent the Archivist in after Peter. He’d known Jon was powerful enough to pull something like this off. He’d sent Peter into the Lonely to help him mark his Archivist anyway. 

There will be time to mourn Peter after the Ritual is complete. It’s a shame he won’t be able to see the new world that he created in color, but he’d always known that some sacrifices would have to be made in his fight to remake the world in fear’s image. . 

Jonah grabs his fountain pen, and begins to write the ritual.


	25. Coda: Blue and Brown

This time, Daisy is well and truly gone. Basira knows that.

Daisy had told her to run, and she had listened, had stayed just long enough to watch Daisy change into something unrecognizable, her teeth elongating as she grew large and hulking and monstrous. She’d resisted as long as she could. Perhaps, in different circumstances, she’d have been able to resist her whole life. But fate had forced Daisy’s hand. 

As Basira had sprinted down the tunnel away from her soulmate and the terrible change she was going through, the colors had shifted once again. She brought Daisy’s blue eyes to mind as the tunnel’s browns had shifted so that the color could only be found at the very edge of her vision, always flicking away, so close, and yet so far. There, but gone. The majority of the world had turned grayscale. 

There’s no coming back from this. Though Daisy’s form is still here in some capacity, though she still hunts and kills, that part of her is all that’s left. Basira keeps her gun loaded now and within arms reach, always ready to follow through on her soulmate’s last request. She loves her. She can’t bring Daisy back from the Hunt, but she can do as Daisy asked and end this last suffering. 

Yet Basira always dreams of Daisy, of laying together in a field of flowers, fingers linked in the green grasses between them. She wants this life for them, wants to cherish and love, to have and to hold. In her dreams they both wear wedding bands, and Daisy’s blue eyes are filled with joy and hope, her blonde hair splayed beneath her. 

“I love you.” Basira tells dream Daisy. 

“Run.” Daisy always responds.

And the dream is marred by Daisy becoming what she had in the tunnels, and a gun in Basira’s hand.


	26. Chestnut Brown

On the second morning of their stay in Daisy’s safehouse, Martin watches Jon from where he leans against the counter top. His soulmate is bent over a book at the kitchen table. As Martin sips his tea, Jon licks his thumb and flips the page. He looks up briefly, and their eyes meet. Jon gives him a soft, affectionate smile, and Martin feels like crying. 

He remembers the day that he’d passed Jon his tea and their fingers had brushed, bringing Martin a world of hues, but none that he loved quite as much as the deep, rich, chestnut brown of Jon’s eyes. He wishes he could see them, but right now, they’re just dark gray and rapidly filling with concern. Jon rises from his seat and crosses the room to grip Martin’s hands in his own. 

“What’s wrong, love?”

Love. Martin feels like melting at the affectionate nickname. 

“I don’t understand why I still can’t see in color,” Martin says tremulously. “This- you- this is everything I’ve ever wanted, I should be happy, I should be able to see-”

Jon crosses the room and reaches up to cup Martin’s cheek, the other hand still clutching his hands between their chests. He wipes away the single tear running down Martin’s cheek. 

“Martin.” He say gently. “You were under the influence of the Lonely for a long time. I don’t expect your colors to come back right away, and that’s okay. They’ll be back, I know it. It just takes time.”

Martin gives him a shaky smile. 

“Daisy doesn’t have any tea here, you know.” Jon says, “Would you like to make a trip into town together? I think an outing would do us both good.”

“Well we can’t have no tea.” Martin says. “Let me get my coat.”

Jon squeezes his hands before dropping them, and Martin sees a flicker of something in the corner of his vision as warmth fills his chest. It’s gone as quickly as it appeared. 

The pair of them get ready to go and leave the cabin with hands linked between them. Jon’s hand is small in his. 

They walk in companionable silence for a while. Martin thinks he’s never been so happy as he is now. The Lonely still lingers on him, but the contrast with the sadness of the Lonely only serves to highlight his joy, and every day the fog slips off of him a little more. 

“When you say that you know my colors will be back,” Martin asks. “Do you mean that you Know...or just that you think they will be?”

“It’s not that I Know that they’ll be back,” Jon says gently. “The colors are a bit of a blind spot for the Fears, actually. If I still saw in grayscale, I wouldn't be able to Know the color of an object, for example. They can eclipse each other, but I’ve sort of come to think of the colors as a good to balance the scales a touch.” 

Martin hums in response. 

It’s a long walk to the village, through fields with towering hills surrounding them, tall grasses brushing at their mid-shins. The sun shines gray and bright above them, illuminating their vast surroundings in a gentle glow. 

On the outskirts of town, they find a pasture full of fluffy, long horned cows, and Martin stops in his tracks with a little “Oh,” pulling Jon to a stop. 

“They’re so fluffy.” Martin marvels at them. 

Jon pulls them closer by their linked hands. A couple of cows come trotting over, hoping for snacks. Martin disentangles his hand from Jon’s and reaches up to scratch one of the cows on her hairy chin and rub between her eyes. 

“This,” Jon declares, similarly engaged with his own cow, “Is a good cow.”

Martin giggles, and Jon follows suit. The herd of cows that had come over snuffle around for snacks for a while, still apparently hoping to get something other than pets out of their visitors.   
A few of them go trotting off deeper into the field to graze. 

They leave after Jon gets an especially slobbery lick from a cow that had hoped for a snack instead of a chin scratch, Jon shaking his hand out as he goes and eventually bending to wipe it in the grass. Martin fights for the nerve to take his un-licked hand in his own again, until Jon switches to Martin’s side and solves his stress by interlacing their fingers again. Martin smiles down at him, feeling that his world would be perfect right now if it weren’t for the grayscale surrounding him.

They get what they need from the small grocery store in town and turn back, stopping briefly to feed the cows the snacks they had picked up from the store for just such a reason.

After the long walk back, Jon collapses onto the couch, and Martin scurries around the kitchen making tea. In the time that it takes for Martin to make the tea, Jon spots a puzzle on the shelf and takes it down, dumps it on the coffee table, and starts flipping over pieces.   
Martin joins him once the tea is ready, passing Jon his tea (earl grey with a dash of sugar, just like the tea Martin had given him the day he’d first gone color for him) and settling down across the table from him to help with the puzzle. 

Their fingers brush as they both reach for the final piece that needs to be flipped over, and Martin feels himself blush, despite the fact that they’d held hands earlier that day. Jon moves in and flips it, shooting Martin a small smile as he does so. It could be Martin’s imagination, but he thinks Jon’s cheeks look slightly red too.

“Where’s the box top?” Martin asks as Jon starts sorting out the edge pieces.

Jon’s head shoots up, the look on his face scandalized. “I put it back on the shelf. Using the box top as a guide is cheating, Martin.”

Martin laughs and stands to retrieve the box, which has a picture of Eilean Donan Castle on it. 

“No it’s not. Why else would it be on the box?”

“So people know what kind of puzzle they’re buying.”

Martin pauses. “Okay, that’s fair. But it’s not a game, it’s a puzzle. And it’s not like it comes with a rulebook that says you can’t use the box top.”

They settle for a compromise: leaving the box on the table facing Martin so he can see it and Jon can’t. Martin solves more pieces than Jon does, which earns him grouchy huffs of “cheater”. Martin just laughs in response. 

Later, Jon takes the mugs and does the washing up while Martin makes lunch. They bump into each other several times in the tiny kitchen and take turns apologizing, though the softness in their eyes tells a different story. They eat together, and do the washing up side by side afterwards, Jon washing the dishes while Martin dries them with a towel. 

There’s something bothering Martin though. Despite all the gentle touches, playful banter, and hand holding, they haven’t actually talked about what they are. Soulmates, certainly, though they’ve both known that for some time. Somehow, his lack of colors makes Martin hesitant to bring up the subject, as though his grayscale world calls into question his worthiness of Jon.

“I’m sorry.” Jon says abruptly, turning off the water and drying his hands. “I know you said that you don’t want me to Know things about you, and I really didn’t do it on purpose, I swear, I just-”

“Jon.” Martin says. “I know you can’t always control it, it’s okay...I mean it’s not ideal, and I’d prefer it if you didn’t, but really, it’s fine. What did you Know?”

“You were worrying about what we are just now.” Jon says. 

Martin’s mouth suddenly feels rather dry. “Right. Yes, I mean that’s true, but we really don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to-”

“No.” Jon says. “I mean yes, I want to talk about it. I just-I’m not good at this sort of thing Martin.” 

Martin nods. Jon barrels on.

“I just. I want for us to be, that is, I don’t know what you want, but I would really like...oh, for god’s sake.”

Jon moves forward without a second thought and kisses him, just a brief, gentle, chaste press of lips against lips. When he leans away, Jon feels dizzy, like he and Martin have been kissing long enough to be out of breath, though this kiss had lasted a mere moment.

(It’s a good kind of dizzy, though. The kind that leaves the world whirling around you, and when it all finally goes steady again, something has changed)

Martin stares at him. 

“You kissed me” he murmurs, utter disbelief laced through every syllable. “You actually-“

“Can I do it again?” Jon blurts before his brain can really process the request. 

“Absolutely.” Martin says, already moving in. 

They meet half way this time, noses bumping together, teeth colliding, fingers tangled maybe-just-a-little-too hard in each other’s hair. None of it matters. The world disappears at the first touch, and Jon practically melts at the reciprocated touch that’s been so long coming. 

They finally part after what feels like hours of gentle, exploratory kisses. 

“Chestnut brown.” Martin murmurs, so soft Jon nearly doesn’t hear it. 

“What?” 

“Your eyes.” Martin replies. “I can see their color again. Chestnut brown.”

Jon smiles at him, and leans back in for another kiss. 

When they’ve finally had their fill, it seems that words have returned to Jon. 

“I’d like us to be together. Romantically speaking, I mean.” He says. 

“I’d like that too, Jon.” Martin smiles back at him, savoring the chestnut brown of his eyes.


End file.
